


Blocked

by iwasanartist



Category: Knives Out (2019)
Genre: Gen, Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:36:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27173936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwasanartist/pseuds/iwasanartist
Summary: There's a hole in Harlan's whodunit.
Relationships: Marta Cabrera & Harlan Thrombey
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Blocked

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lorelei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorelei/gifts).



Harlan tapped his pen on the desk a few times before laying tip to paper. He scratched out several lines of text, drew an arrow to move one line higher and began again. The ink flowed smoothly and freely onto the rich paper. The words from his brain were less so. He read over what he’d just written, and moved to cross out even more but found his hand curling tightly around the pen.

“Shit!” he said as he dropped the pen on the table with enough force to send it rolling to the floor. He scowled at the pages in front of him before relaxing his muscles and bringing his hands to his face, unsure if the shame he was feeling was more for the crimes against writing he’d committed or the childish vulgarity of his outburst over it.

How he longed for the days when the plots popped fully formed into his brain and all the right words poured out of him like music. Maybe he was just too old. Or too sick. Or trying to learn too many new tricks. 

He’d seen an uptick in sales recently, thanks to a timely anniversary of his first big hit and a revisiting of a character from that novel in the most recent. But he hadn’t forgotten the dip from the book before then. Walt didn’t think he paid any attention to numbers, but Harlan had been in the business since Linda was in diapers. He could tell when a downturn was coming. So he decided to try something new. A modern murder mystery for a generation that knew more about social media than social interaction. He wanted something with enough flash to catch their eyes and enough class to pull them back to a simpler time before they’d even realized it.

It was more difficult than he’d expected. Everything about it, from the plot to the prose, was like drawing air through a coffee stirrer. He had the victim, and he had the how, but he couldn’t point his finger at a why. And without a why, there was no who, and without a who, there was, quite simply, no novel. 

Harlan scowled at the pen and was about to retrieve it when the door pushed open after a short knock. Marta entered with a tea set and needed only to follow his gaze to the pen to assess the situation. 

“Still trying to figure out whodunit?” she asked.

“Among other things.” Marta put the tea set on the desk and began preparing a cup. “How’s Fran’s ankle?”

“Tender, but on the mend. Two sugars?”

“Please.”

Harlan watched her hands move delicately over the china with just as much care and precision as when she administered his medication or laid a stone on a board.

“Fancy a game of Go?” he asked. He’d expected her to say no. She did most of the time after all. But on this day, her eyes landed briefly on his scribbled over notes and the pens in disarray before reaching his face.

“Sure,” she said, as she went to grab the board. She knew him all to well. Maybe that was why she won so often. Familiarity and all. She’d actually won the very first game they’d played. _Beginner’s luck_ he’d said, and crowed in righteous victory when he handed her a thorough drubbing in their second game. 

He’d told her all about the strategy of the game, recommended books — and then pulled most of them off his own shelves and thrust them into her hands. She’d spoken of the game as if she’d read them and retained their secrets, but the next time they played, he couldn’t follow her moves any better than the first time. It was all so random, and she’d lost handsomely. When he asked why she hadn’t used any of the things he’d taught her, she just smiled and said she had her own way.

“It may not win every time, but it’s fun for me,” she’d said. And then she took him to the cleaners two games in a row. He still didn’t know how she did it. But maybe that was all right.

Harlan thought back to his novel as she laid out the board and divided the stones. Strip away all the modern trappings and there were really only three reasons murder. 

Money. Love. Revenge.

Marta smiled as she slid his stones to him and placed her first on the board, at the 1-2 point. And in that moment, epiphany.

Why not all three at once?


End file.
